The long answer goes something like this:

I was more nauseated and pukier in the first trimester but the second and third have been much better than my first two pregnancies for sure! Part of it is because I’ve not been able to cheat on my diet without serious consequences. So for the most part, I’ve been eating a lot healthier. I’m tempted to feel bummed out, but really, it’s better for me and baby in the long run. So, while I miss Tillamook cheeseburgers and other junk food, I’m not missing the bellyaches, insomnia, and pain.

Another positive contributor to this pregnancy has been the fitness challenge that some friends and I restarted back in January of last year. Jack and I were the last survivors till June, and he has kindly continued working out with me once a week all this time! Love you, bro!

I also had a shift in my approach to wellness back in the spring. This pregnancy accidentally started during my treatment to kill off parasites and candida. I had been scared by the possibility of needing prolo therapy for my neck if I didn’t strengthen it enough with physical therapy. And my therapy wouldn’t do much good if I were still fighting chronic inflammation from critters in my guts. I was very motivated to get well, but was derailed a bit when I found out about this new baby on the way.

But God is good, and gave me hope that I could still improve my health throughout the pregnancy. I quit the drugs and started to focus on putting good foods (organic & antibiotic free) in my diet to detoxify slowly and naturally, thus begin the healing of my guts. Watching the documentary “Food Matters” gave me the perspective shift I needed. I don’t want to agonize and spend a ton of money on tests that don’t seem to catch or identify what kind of parasite has been plaguing me for the past 11 years any more. I don’t really care what kind it is now because my new goal is to just heal my immune system, and let it take care of what ever worms and flora imbalance I have.

When the body truly heals, it heals completely, and the more I read and learn, and with what my experience has taught me, the more I believe that healing the guts is the key to healing most everything else that’s wrong with the body.

I also began reading “Patient Heal Thyself” by Jordan Rueben. I like his holistic healing approach as well, being that he almost died of Chrones Disease at age 19 but was healed through diet and soil based organisms. He has created a company to make all kinds of gut healing supplements. What makes his stuff stand out above other products is the use of a special fermenting process. This enables people with poor nutrient absorption to have a better chance of actually getting something out of the supplements and foods rather than it just passing on through. Out of all the supplements I’ve taken over the past decade, his seems to be the best so far! No more feeling like a hot fist punching me in the stomach every time I eat, thanks to Omega-zyme. And the soil organisms, Primal Defense, or what I call “super probiotic,” has made my intestines feel more harmonized. Way less “bad days” of fatigue and pain are occurring.

Back to my short answer A), my chiropractor has helped me tremendously; not only with adjustments, but also with Frequency Specific Microcurrent. FSM treatments are not recommended for pregnant women because we can’t be sure what it does to the baby. My decision to continue using it is because it is a non-drug pain management tool, which I believe to be safer and less toxic to me and the baby than if I were using medicine. I feel that if my body is so stressed out from pain and insomnia, the baby would be getting 9 months of stress hormones and deficient immune support, and maybe even less nutrition absorption as my absorption suffers from all the inflammation. It is better for my baby to have me healthier and harmonized. I’ll be curious to see if this baby thrives better than my girls, who have many food allergies/sensitivities as a result of a weak immune system (leaky gut).

And concerning my short answer B), my husband has been so amazing in his support of all of these changes in our lives, as well as continuing to be a very healing person in my life. Just who he is as a calm personality, as a servant-hearted dishwasher, vacuumer, growing cook, and wonderful father… all of this and his tender care for me have done far more than any doctor or supplement could ever do for my well being!

Lest my long answer become way too long, I won’t go into detail of all that my parents and David’s parents do for us too, but I can’t begin to think how this pregnancy or my other pregnancies and child rearing would suffer without their loving care in our lives!

I’m so thankful to the Lord for leading me in this journey of healthy lifestyle changes. It sure took me long enough to get to this space of actually wanting these changes rather than feeling sorry for myself, and living in painful denial year after year. I once heard it said that you will change when staying the same hurts too much. I wish it could be of some noble strength I possess that has brought about these changes in my life, but really, I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired for most of my adult life. And now that I’ve caught glimpses of hope of getting completely well, I can’t shake this vision away.

I have made up my mind to become young by the time I reach 40 years old. Not just for my sake, but for my husband’s and kids’ sake, and for all the dear friends in my life that the Lord wants me to be serving.

Unfortunately, my little point and shoot camera cannot zoom while recording. And I started second guessing which song she soloed in, so I recorded Naftule. Then I saw the brass section featured in Water Music, so I had to record that! And then in the Russian Easter Overture, the correct song, I ran out of card space before her solo! Thank God Mary joined me with her high-definition camera recording next to me! She also handed me her point and shoot when I ran out of space at the end. SO! A little hashing together, and here we are!

Oh! One more thing: her next concert will feature themes from Batman, Band of Brothers, and others, including James Bond! Friday the 13th of May! Should be fun!

Naftule, Naftule Suite

The Water Music Suite for Brass

Russian Easter Festival Overture

Ni Hao Kai-lan is pretty cute… borderline annoying… but useful for learning Mandarin. Wonderpets is by far the cutest show ever. We watched them save the Nutcracker this week.

I had been thinking of taking the girls to Disneyland in a few years. But maybe we’d better take them to China while their ma ma and ye ye are still around.

One of my favorite sites, How It Should Have Ended, made me laugh pretty hard the other night. I didn’t care for Tron, but HISHE’s wrap up of it was great! Oh, and my new favorite video of theirs is How the Empire Strikes Back should have ended.

My 17 1/2 month old now says “me me” (excuse me) after she toots. My 3 1/2 year old sings the following regularly, starting with “Merry Kissmas Charlie Brown! Hark the angles sing gory to the new born king, peace on earth and mercy mile God and singers reconsmile, joyful …, join the triangle above the skies, with…., Christ is born in Bethlhem, Hark the angles sing gory to the new born king!”

Back tracking a little to springtime, I saw my beloved Dr. Carol McMakin who is the guru or “yoda” of Frequency Specific Microcurrent. She is the one who, by using FSM, diagnosed I had a bulged disc in my neck after Kadie was born and I was able to treat it with my personal FSM machine and shrink it down.

However, I’ve still had chronic neck instability, and Dr. Carol wanted to find some more answers. She ordered an x-ray and found out that C3 and C4 in my neck slide forward a couple millimeters when bending forward, and also slides back a millimeter when looking up. And then C5, 6 and 7 don’t move at all. So rather than a nice curve when bending my neck, I have a 45 degree angle, with my spinal cord being pinched and facets hitting each other, and terrible headaches that don’t let me sleep.

Dr. Carol asked me if I’d ever felt disconnected from my feet, and I do recall making myself go dancing even though my neck and head hurt, and then feeling like I couldn’t really tell my feet or body where to go. I was frustrated that I wasn’t in control of my body, and now I know why.

Thankfully, my neck isn’t so bad off that I need surgery. A translation of 4 millimeters is surgery-worthy. So I’ve been pretty diligently going to my physical therapist and doing my exercises at home to try and strengthen my stabilizer muscles. If that doesn’t work, then I am faced with an injection therapy where they line everything up, then inject something like sugar to cause inflammation and a build up of scar tissue to hold my vertebrae in place. Apparently it’s a pretty painful procedure.

So back to the month of July, I made some poor choices to skip my exercises to get ready for Violet’s birthday, and go off my diet a little, and as a result, I hurt more. There was also some emotional things going on since I was sad my cousin, Wendy and her son, Ryan were going to move away at the end of the month.

The biggest raincloud was at Violet’s first year check up, when I found out that she had lost almost 2 pounds. They had to draw her blood out of her tiny arm, which took forever, and was horrible! I haven’t got results back yet, but the doctor and I agree that she must have leaky gut like Kadie does. Around the same age, Kadie had remained 16 pounds for 6 months. Violet had gone from 17 pounds to 15.

I felt devastated. A couple of naturopathic doctors had warned me that some of my IBS issues could be passed on to my children, whereas a medical pediatrician had told me that they would be safe from them. I wanted to believe the latter, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.

I had been through the process of doing a low allergen rotation diet before and I dreaded the thought of having to cook that much when I felt my own health declining. I had a very overwhelming feeling hang over me for a week or so, as I cried and prayed to God for help. I was angry at myself for not noticing Violet getting thinner. I knew she had started to refuse to eat more, and she was fussier. I guess I was getting absorbed in my heightened state of pain and fatigue.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I read an article that reminded me that happiness comes from outward circumstances, but true joy that comes from the Lord can be found regardless of circumstances. It was something I had known before, but it was a timely reminder and encouragement to me that God’s still in control and he’s going to make good come out of all of this.

After not sleeping well, myself, due to a painful stomach, head, and feeling something systemically (Candida was my only guess) spreading through my whole body, I decided I needed help. I sent an email to my close family and friends, and was blown away by the response! I struggled with feeling like being a burden, but was then brought to my knees in awe of the love and servant-hearted support from the dearest people in my life.

Alex brought us dinner the very next night. My dad and Wendy came over with tons of food, and helped me shop, and watch and feed the kids so I could rest and do my exercises. My in-laws cooked rice porridge and more food. Leah baked special gluten free, egg free, dairy free muffins and such. Rachel came over and cared for the kids, did my dishes, and not only folded my laundry, but put the baby clothes away in the drawers! Travis came and cleaned my bathrooms. Tiffany agreed to help experiment in baking more G free, D free, E free things for me. And we had many more offers of people cooking for us or watching the kids. Talk about blinding sunshine!

On a side note, God also did a miracle in my cousin’s life which turned my sadness to great joy. Without going into details, Wendy is staying until she and her man marry! So excited!

In the middle of all the help pouring in, I saw Dr. Carol again, and she and I deduced that the main culprit for my gut pain and all chain reactions stemming from it, was from the Tetanus and Pertussis (DTaP) booster shot I received the Friday between Violet’s birthday and mine. She treated my small intestine for those specific vaccines and I felt much better! I’m still not normal, but better.

I can’t believe I let myself get talked into getting the shot! I’m mad at myself for knowing that people with IBS or other immune problems can have adverse reactions to vaccines, and I still got it! Dr. Carol said to don’t even get her started on the subject of vaccines. She is the person people go see when they’ve had bad reactions to them, and that no level of mercury is safe for human consumption. Yet some vaccines still contain it! My naturopath, Dr. Dramov was also shocked that I had gotten the shot and said that fibromyalgia can be induced from vaccines. A lot of other ingredients, including aluminum, are toxic.

These are the things that are never told to mothers when they find out they are pregnant. Vaccines are an issue I never wanted to dig into because there’s such conflicting information and I couldn’t figure out what to believe about them. Now I know enough to be careful with my girls and myself, especially since we have immune system problems.

Another raincloud that came to hover was a virus that Kadie caught, and I think I did too, that is similar to chicken pox. She had itchy bumps for a week, and she and I shared GI crud, more than I already had going on.

To sum up, I’m on the mend, Kadie’s bumps have disappeared, and Violet is a little more comfortable since avoiding certain foods. A small, yet so huge of a victory, is that she’s gained 2 pounds and 5 ounces in under 2 weeks!

Thankfully, Violet still nurses 4 times a day, and I think the extra probiotics and fish oil are helping as well. I started giving the girls some special food powder from Mannatech, and am hoping for results similar to a fail-to-thrive baby’s success story I heard about with it.

David’s gotten me out of the house a bit more so I can have a breather between all the feedings and cooking I do each day. And everyday, I’m so thankful for all the rainbows God has made from the struggles and triumphs of our current health journey as well as many past journeys in my life so far.

He had been diagnosed a couple years ago, and seemed to overcome it. But a while later the cancer returned. He had to stop teaching in September due to the pain, and from then on he battled it out until the Lord took him home last Friday.

I wish I could say I had known him well, but all I really know is that he was a kind uncle, and a very busy guy with teaching math, coaching swimming, carpentering, gardening, and raising my cousins. I’m glad to have been able to see him and his family often at Gram and Gramp’s place on holidays and birthdays. He was always easy to talk to, and he had a jolly disposition that was fun to be around.

I remember my mom telling me and my brothers as kids that if anything ever happened to her or my dad, we would go live with Uncle Steve and Aunt Kathy. Not that I wished my parents any harm, but I had fun imagining living with the Wirtz clan. My cousins are a lively bunch. They play lots of games, and they had (maybe still do have) a punching/picking-on-each-other type of relationship with each other. Mostly good-natured teasing I think.

The Wirtzs camped at Battle Ground Lake a lot, and since we lived a few miles from there, we would sometimes hang out with them there. The first year I was married, David and I joined in the camping fun there since David had never been camping before. Unfortunately there was a drunk couple a few sites away that were fighting loudly the whole night and then vomiting in the wee hours of the morning. I felt so bad. I told David that camping was usually more fun than that. Oh well.

Back to the gatherings at Gram and Gramp’s, on Christmas eve we would all go to Steve and Kathy’s church for the candle light service, and then celebrate Aunt Kathy’s birthday. We’d stay the night, and then open presents one at a time, with the gifts from the Wirtz clan being wrapped in their homemade tie dye tissue paper. They were always so generous and thoughtful in giving us gifts.

Towards the end of my uncle’s life, though there was tragedy in the whole situation, I saw a lot of wonderful things happen. Family gatherings were a bit more meaningful to everyone, I think. I watched his kids pull together to take care of him. My other uncles came down from Seattle/Olympia more often.

It also made me remember just how blessed I am to have such wonderful family and extended family in my life. As I think of my cousins losing their dad, I am reminded of how amazing my dad is, how he goes above and beyond to take care of my family, as well as other people too. I love that he drove up to Longview for a couple of hours just to sit and play his guitar for Uncle Steve. I love that dad and my brother Cory would play guitar for me when I was really sick and bedridden during my struggle with parasites.

I also think of my mom losing her little brother, and how much I miss my little brother, Rex, as he’s way out in New York. I look forward to shooting pop cans with BB guns with him when my neck and shoulders are better again. I hope he moves back home soon so we can stop in at his place once in a while if we wanted to, and so that we could all be together regularly.

Friday night I shed some tears for my uncle, not knowing that he had died that night until I listened to my dad’s voicemail the next morning. I guess I was crying with the rest of the family in some way. I will miss him at our family gatherings, but I’m glad to know he’s no longer in pain, and that I’ll get to hang out with him again in Heaven someday. Love you, Uncle Steve.

Part of why it was such a surprise was that it was a whole month early from my actual birthday. But he was thinking ahead and we both agree that I don’t know what I’ll really be up in the following month after the baby’s born.

Honestly, Friday morning was a grumpy start for me as I was awake at 6am and didn’t get back to sleep again since I was head-achy and hungry. But then David told me he got the day off, and I was instantly happy. He had to give me hints that something else was up his sleeve since I was trying to plan out dropping Kadie off with my mom like we had arranged earlier. He gave me until lunch time to guess what was up.

It wasn’t a person, place or thing, so I narrowed down to an event. The first word started with an “s” and ended with an “r”. I have to admit, I was a bit slow in the brain to figure it out. “Super party….soccer party…sucker party…” Meanwhile David was taking care of Kadie, cleaning bathrooms and dishes. Finally, before we left for lunch at New Seasons… “slumber party!” I was SOOOO excited! What a good man I have!

David headed up to my folks’ with Kadie to stay the night there. I tried to take a nap but was too excited to sleep. The gals started trickling in after 4:30 pm. It so happened to be down pouring rain that day, and traffic was even more horrendous than usual for a Friday. But each of my friends had a big smile on their face when they showed up at my door. Probably very relieved to be out of their car after sitting for an hour and a half or more.

We ate Burgerville, played scrabble, roasted marshmallows on my gas stove for s’mores, ate fresh picked strawberries and coconut ice cream, caught up with each other, shared hilarious stories, ate more snacks like popcorn, sausage, crackers, cheese, all kinds of fresh fruit, we played Operation, and talked and talked and laughed some more. Good times!

Some of the highlights for me were the excellent food, having some of my friends meet each other for the first time, and the nice gifts given to me (tomato plants, a cute ceramic sign saying “There’s always a reason to dance”, a humming bird feeder, a cook book on cd, and a gorgeous planter pot of flowers).

Our conversations ranged from our families (especially Jessica’s life full of kids and everyone else’s kids), to our jobs (like Tiffany’s young obsession with making Lego floor plans to now being an architect), to how my friends and I met (through dance, church, being cousins, through Jack – aka the Kevin Bacon of Portland), to crazy things that have happened while asleep, or of people hanging out of moving cars.

I have to say that Tiffany’s sleep story is the best I’ve heard in a while. I’ve experienced waking up scared at the stranger’s hand in my bed which turned out to be my own that had fallen asleep. But Tiffany’s friend trumps all—her friend woke up with a hand on her face over her forehead and eye on one side. She started freaking out, got up, and screamed through the house because the hand was still on her, and her family was in hysterics because her arm was wrapped around the back of her head and plastered to the other side of her face, asleep.

I loved Jessica’s story of getting in the car but her mom started driving off before she got in. Cindy actually ran over Jessica’s foot and leg (which miraculously didn’t break!), and when Jess shouted about it, Cindy said, “Well, get in faster!”

Only three gals ended up staying the night with me, and we made it till 1am before I headed upstairs to my own bed and bathroom as I make several trips throughout the night these days. In the morning, we ate waffles, and Leah and Thuy headed off to work while Tiffany and I enjoyed some YouTube clips of the Muppets Swedish Chef before she left. What a great party! I’ll remember this event for a long time because I feel so very loved by the dearest friends and an amazing husband who set it all up.

Not to complain, though. I’m thrilled to get my Grandma Hill’s old Pfaff machine, which my parents and Rex chipped in to get repaired. It was an expensive Christmas/birthday gift, more money than it costs to get a new cheap machine from Costco or somewhere. But the Pfaff is also worth quite more if I sold it. I don’t know that I will sell it ever. It’s a link to a very dear woman, and I can imagine Grandma sewing the stuffed animals she made for me.

David: “Huh? You need to grebber garble gooka?”
Jenni: “No! I need to grab the diaper bag!”

(I just made that up because I can’t remember what we’ve actually said, but it’s a lot like that.) Needless to say, our processing skills are a bit shot, just as our eyes are blood-shot.

I’ve done some silly things like using David’s toothbrush – oops! Gross! Sorry, honey. Just this morning I trimmed my bangs while they were wet and being pulled down. I cut, cleaned hair out of the the sink, and then was startled with horror when I looked up. Too short! Ugh! Guess I’ll have to hairspray them back since the clips won’t hold them anymore. My right thigh looks like I’ve spilled ink on it but really it’s just the bruise I got from hitting the high chair in our little apartment. Man! I can’t walk straight, think straight, hear right, or speak in coherent sentences.

Last week, when Kadie was crying at 2 or 3 in the morning, I must have been actively dreaming because I was telling David to do something but I wasn’t making any sense. After David asked me “What are you talking about?” He was like, “Stop talking and wake up!”

After I fed Kadie a little, I needed to eat because of low blood sugar. He told me, “Go eat. I’ll sing to her Kumbaya.” As I was cooking my rice and peanut butter I heard him start singing in a loud, delirious voice “Kumbaya………. (pause) Kumbaya.” He made it through a couple rounds of “Dut dut duhhhh….” which I picked out to be Heart and Soul, and 99 Bottles of Beer on the wall till she started wailing again.

Creative, honey. I have to give it to ya. I would never have thought to sing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. Though that does remind me of a couple drinking songs I may pass on to her that I picked up while on the ranch in Wyoming, and one I learned from my Grandma.

Another thing that is affected from sleep deprivation is my memory. My physical therapist said, “What? You’ve got baby brain?” She just had her second child and is probably worse off than me right now. There are more stories of forgetting things, I’m sure, but for the life of me, I can’t remember them.

“There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this, and such a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon, so unlike the usual style of give-and-take invitations…

“On quitting the Cobb, they all went in-doors with their new friends, and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many.” – Persuasion

I wish I knew the Harvilles. I find myself identifying with them because of having a small home, and I’m always happiest when it is packed with the people near and dear to me.